Here lies Jasmine Hadley,
She died of embarrassment.
And two years ago, she would've been right. When I look back at that time, I can't believe how foolishly I behaved. How ridiculous to be afraid to go to my doctor and ask for help on something personal. Almost ridiculously fatal. But my epitaph now would be far worse. Because apart from my daughters there's not a single thing I've done in my life in which I can take pride. I've never really helped anyone. I've never considered anyone besides myself and my girls. I've never done anything useful, made anyone's life better, brought joy to anyone. A pointless, worthless existence. If it weren't for my daughters I might just as well have never been born for all the good I've done in this world.
Here lies Jasmine Hadley,
She died of vanity.
She died a failure.
I hate the sound of that. I don't want to leave this world having contributed nothing. I couldn't bear that.
I know what the doctors won't tell me.
My cancer is back with a vengeance now. I think I'm dying.
And now that it's a definite prospect, all I can think about is living. Funny how dying concentrates the mind. Too little, too late. I've been such a fool. I lived in my huge house and used it to hide away from the rest of the world for so many years that by the time I was ready to emerge, I didn't know how. I was too afraid.
I don't want to die a failure. That thought haunts me more than any other. I've got to try and help Sephy and Callie Rose find each other again. If I could do that then I'd die a happy woman. But how?
How?
eighty-nine.
Callie is 15
'EQUAL RIGHTS FOR BLACKS AND WHITES! EQUAL RIGHTS FOR BLACKS AND WHITES!'
We were marching towards the Houses of Parliament. Alex Luther, the Nought leader of the Coalition for Rights and Equality, had given an inspirational speech at the beginning of our march and now he was leading the huge crowd of Noughts and Crosses, united in one common chant. Alex's mantra was peaceful disobedience and though he was getting on in years, he was still so vibrant, so motivating.
'EQUAL RIGHTS FOR BLACKS AND WHITES!'
There were entire families on the march. Brothers and sisters, mums and dad, friends and neighbours, even kids being pushed along in buggies. And even though I was by myself, I wasn't alone. The middle-aged Nought couple marching next to me had taken me under their wing. In between chants, we'd been laughing and joking together for the last hour. They were Lara and Paul Butler, both retired, both in their late fifties. Before Lara retired, she had been a teacher in an inner-city Nought school. Paul had worked in the steel industry – when the country still had one. And they'd been fighting for the rights of Noughts since before I was born. They weren't afraid of anything.
'You've both been doing this for so long,' I said over the noise of those around me. 'Don't you ever want to just give up?'
'Never,' said Paul.
'We don't know what the word means,' Lara added, laughing.
'But after all these years you're still having to march to make yourselves heard,' I pointed out.
'Which is how we know we will be heard,' said Paul. 'The authorities would like nothing better than for all of us to stay at home and whine about the way things are and how they'll never change. But that's never going to happen. 'Cause we don't believe that. Only those with no faith and no guts think like that.'
'Or maybe those who can see the world for what it really is?' I suggested.
'You don't really believe that or you wouldn't be taking part in this march. And you're too young to be so pessimistic.' Lara waved a finger at me. 'When friends and family have gone, when all your money and possessions have gone, when even the light has gone, d'you know the one thing that will keep you going?'
I shook my head.
'Hope,' said Lara.
Hope? I wasn't even sure if I knew what the word meant any more. It wasn't something I could touch or hold onto. It felt like something I'd lost quite a while ago.
But maybe I could get it back.
Paul and Lara made me feel that anything was possible.
So we marched in an almost carnival atmosphere, banners flying and us marchers waving at everyone, whether they cheered us or jeered us. It didn't matter. We walked in the road, blocking the traffic so that we couldn't be ignored. I'd never done anything like this before. It was amazing. Of course, I hadn't told Mum or Nana Meggie where I was going or what I was going to do. They'd only have turned the whole thing into an unnecessary drama. So I'd told them I was going out shopping with Sammi and instead Uncle Jude had driven me all the way to the capital so I could be part of the march. As Uncle said, it was my chance to make a difference, the sort of thing the L.M. encouraged. I was part of a protest rally that meant something. And it was the most thrilling experience of my life.
Until the hordes of police arrived. And then the whole thing turned into a nightmare. They came on horseback and on foot, in military formation, and charged at us with truncheons and batons and pepper spray and Taser guns. They charged at us for no reason. They were the mob and we marchers just scattered and ran for our lives. We were screaming and crying and trying to ask them why, but none of them would listen. They laid into us like we were nothing, which in their eyes was exactly what we were.
I tried to duck down out of sight behind some bins. I thought I was safe until some instinct had me spinning round, just in time to see a copper charging at me, a Taser in his hand. I tried to run but the huge bins and the copper were blocking my only escape routes. I put my hand up to surrender but it didn't make any difference. The copper wasn't taking any prisoners. He lunged at me with his Taser gun and an electric shock like nothing I'd ever felt before violently shook my body before I dropped like a stone to the ground. Still shaking violently, I involuntarily wet myself. I couldn't help it. My body was still quaking and I had no control over any of it, not my muscles, not my organs, not even my breathing. I really thought I was going to die. Two of the marchers came running up behind the copper, who was trying to drag me along the ground, and they all started fighting. I could see their feet scuffling around, almost dancing. Terrified one or more of them would step on me, I tried to roll out the way, but I still had no control over my body. I tried to curl into a ball, but the links between my brain and the rest of me had been severed. I could feel that the violent spasms racking my body were beginning to lessen, which was just as well because there wasn't a bone in my body which didn't feel like it was about to snap in half.
The copper suddenly hit the floor and was jerking around like a demented puppet in front of me.
'Let's see how you like it,' the Nought protester shouted at him. I could now turn my head enough to see the Nought protester Taser the copper again with his own weapon. The other demonstrator, a young Cross man with locks, helped me to my feet.
'You need to go home,' said the Cross man. 'Things around here are getting really ugly.'
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. With the aid of the Cross man I managed to limp painfully to the end of the road.
'There's a tube station just down there,' my benefactor said, pointing towards the river. 'Will you be able to make it?'
I nodded.
'Go home,' he ordered.
I nodded again. 'Thank you.'
The protester smiled briefly before heading back the way he came. The copper was still twitching on the ground. The man with the Taser was long gone. I could hear shouts and screams and sirens and the sounds of glass shattering behind me. My helper was heading back into all that. My trousers were wet and I felt sick and mostly I just wanted to go home. Part of me wanted to head back and help the others in the march, especially Paul and Lara, but I was too afraid.
I pulled off my jacket and tied it round my waist to hide the tell-tale stains on my trousers. Heading towards the tube station, I felt the tears streaming down my face at my lack of courage. I didn't have the nerve to stay. Paul and Lara, old as they were, had
more guts than me.
I was a coward, wimping out at the first sign of trouble – and that was the bitter, unwelcome truth.
ninety. Jude
The march was a glorious, chaotic fiasco. A delicious shambles. A riot. It all worked perfectly. We in the L.M. called in an anonymous warning to say a number of our operatives had infiltrated the group of marchers and had deadly weapons and a couple of explosive devices ready to go off at the appropriate moment. And the police had gone for it. They didn't try to covertly survey the crowd for known L.M. members. They didn't try to separate the marchers into groups that could be scanned and searched. They had tried that the last time there'd been an anti-discrimination march and we'd really been present that time and had made them pay. So this time they panicked. How they panicked. It made worldwide news.
And Callie Rose was in the middle of it all.
I was so proud when I caught sight of her on the TV. She looked afraid and, more importantly, angry in the brief glimpse I caught of her. Very angry. And the next time we get together, I'll let her know just who's responsible for the police charging in like that. Not just this current government, but the man who gave the police such authority when he was in power. The man who wanted to give the police carte blanche to do what they wanted to 'immigrants' and 'undesirables'. The one, the only, Kamal Hadley.
ninety-one.
Callie is 15
On the news they announced that two people had died in the earlier riots. One of them was a retired steelworker called Paul Butler who apparently died of a heart attack after being Tasered. The newsreader made it sound like he was announcing the arrival of the next train. Paul didn't deserve what happened to him. No one deserved to be treated like that. I didn't know the other guy but he was someone's husband, someone's son. We didn't do anything wrong. All we did was stop a little traffic. Was that worth the deaths of two people? The police had no right to behave as they did. The government had no right. We didn't do anything wrong.
I watched the news, feeling my heart get harder, my soul grow colder.
They had no right.
Is this how my dad felt when his dad was arrested for the Dundale Shopping Centre bombing, for something he didn't do? Is this how it burned inside when Dad was booted out of school through no fault of his own? Is this what he experienced when he realized that no matter what he did, he'd never be good enough, smart enough – Cross enough? For the first time since I learned who my dad really was, I felt I understood him – just a little better. I still loathed him, but I was beginning to understand him, something I never expected in a million years.
How ironic.
ninety-two. Sephy
The silver hatchback had been tailing me from the time I turned into my road. At least, that's when I became aware of it. Who was it this time? Some half-arsed government official trailing me and Meggie in the wake of the riots a fortnight ago? Did they really believe either of us had anything to do with it? I thought all that trailing and surveillance nonsense had finished years ago. They should know by now that neither Meggie nor I have anything whatsoever to do with the L.M. I walked slowly, the bag of shopping in each hand threatening to cut my fingers off. What should I do? Keep walking? Stop and let the driver know that I knew I was being followed? If only I'd been in my car. Then I could've driven off and lost them in the town traffic. But I was walking and the shopping bags were getting heavier with each step.
If I went home, I'd lead the person following me straight to my front door. But they already knew where I lived if they were waiting for me in my street.
What to do?
I'd go home. It had to be safer there than out on the street. I had to force myself to carry on walking at the same pace so as not to raise any suspicions.
'Walk normally, Sephy. Everything's fine,' I told myself.
As I approached my front door, I transferred the bag in my right hand to my left and fished into my cavernous coat pocket for my keys. I touched each, feeling for the one that would open the front door. I kept my hand in my pocket until the last possible moment. My hand was shaking as I inserted the key, but luckily I didn't drop it. The next instant, I was in the house like a rat up a drainpipe, slamming the door shut behind me. The shopping hit the floor a fraction of a moment later as I dashed into the living room. Peering through the net curtains, I saw I wasn't being paranoid. The silver car that'd been following me pulled up in front of my house. A Cross woman sat behind the wheel. As she turned to scrutinize the house, I sprang back from the window.
Had she seen me?
What was I thinking of? Of course she'd seen me. She'd been following me for goodness' sake.
Don't panic, Persephone.
The days of people following you home to hurl abuse at you are all but over. There was still the occasional word or two, the more frequent stare, but nothing on the scale of the abuse I'd suffered when Callie Rose was younger. At least, not in this part of the country.
The woman in the car sat staring up at the house. How much longer was she going to watch me? Hell, if she'd come to vilify me, she'd find I could give as good as I got – and then some more. Enough was already too much. Flinging open the front door, I marched down the garden path. The woman inside the car looked nervous but she didn't drive away as I'd expected her to. I tapped smartly on the window. The woman pressed a button and the window purred its way downwards.
'Can I help you?' I asked with belligerence.
'You're Persephone Hadley?' asked the woman.
'Who wants to know?' I asked, peering in through the open car window.
'My name is Celine Labinjah.'
The name meant nothing to me and it probably showed in my expression. I stepped back as the woman switched off her engine. She got out of her car and came around to stand before me, a brown envelope in her hand.
'My dad was Jack Labinjah.'
She said it like that would clear up the whole mystery. It didn't.
'My dad was a prison officer at Hewmett Prison. Callum McGregor gave my dad a letter to pass on to you before he died,' said Celine.
My body turned hollow and my heart dropped down to my heels. Jack Labinjah. I remembered him now. I remembered everything about him – his deep voice, his trim moustache, his sad, brown eyes as he handed me Callum's hateful, hurtful letter. The letter that had exploded every naive, fairy-tale notion I'd held about love. Until I learned how hard it was to love someone else if you couldn't love yourself.
Suspicion turned to unease as I regarded Celine. 'What d'you want?'
'My father died five months ago,' said Celine. 'Before he died he made me promise to find you and give you something.'
All words of sympathy or condolences for the death of her father were swept from my head. 'Give me what?'
'This envelope with your name on it,' said Celine.
'No thank you,' I said, already turning away. The last time Jack Labinjah had delivered something to my door, he'd devastated my life. I wanted nothing else from him. As I made my way back inside, Celine came running up behind me. I hoped to make it inside my house before she reached me but it didn't happen.
'Look, I don't like this any more than you do,' Celine said. She tried to shove the envelope in her hand towards me. I childishly placed my hands behind my back.
'I'm not leaving here until you take it. I promised my dad,' she said again.
'What is it?'
'I don't know much about it,' Celine said with impatience. 'Dad told me that some guy called Callum McGregor wrote a letter to his girlfriend. You?'
I didn't answer.
'Anyway, Dad said that the guy, Callum, scrunched up his first letter, threw it away and then rewrote it. He asked Dad to deliver his second one, but after Callum died, Dad retrieved his first letter and kept it.'
'Why?'
'Dad promised to deliver the second letter but he knew the first one was the real one.'
'I don't understand. How did he know that?'
'This guy Callum told
him so. Apparently, Callum said the first letter he wrote to you was . . . selfish? He made Dad promise to deliver the second letter he wrote.'
'So why bother delivering this first letter at all?' I asked bitterly. 'I don't want it and obviously . . . Callum didn't want me to have it either.'
'Dad said he wouldn't rest in peace until you got it. And he made me promise to deliver it. That's all I know.'
When I didn't move, Celine used her free hand to take my right hand and thrust the envelope into it.
'It's going straight in the bin,' I told her.
'That's your prerogative. I've done what Dad asked me to do,' said Celine.
I watched her get back into her car and drive away. I re-entered the house, the envelope making the palm of my hand sweat. I walked into the kitchen, ready to put the damn thing in the bin.
But I couldn't.
I just couldn't.
My heart leaped forward like a skimmed stone as I stared down at the envelope. My stomach began to churn and turn and burn inside. I tore open the envelope and fished out the contents – despising myself for my weakness. I should burn the thing, tear it up unread. Why put myself through more pain from that man?
I remembered a time, just after Sonny left for good but before Nathan, when I sat in my bedroom late one night and forced myself to remember Callum and me. I revisited every memory – good or bad. Some made me laugh out loud, a few made me cry, most made me smile. But with each memory, I became more and more convinced that Callum cared about me the way I cared about him. Each memory made the pain of Callum's letter shrink just that bit more. And when that hateful letter was stolen, yes, I was terrified that it might turn up, raking up the past along with it, but deep down I was glad it was gone. When the days turned to weeks and weeks slipped into months, I relaxed in the knowledge that the letter had almost certainly gone for good. And with the letter no longer in the way to cloud my judgement, it was easier to see the truth.
Checkmate Page 28
